A Game Developers Wish List for Researchers Chris Hecker

This talk assumes you care about being relevant to games. Disclaimer Also, I sometimes curse...a lot.

Games & Research Through The Ages In days of yore, we were passive consumers of (usually old) research. These days, there is active feedback between the two disciplines.

How to do a talk on research?

What is our highest technology priority? Know Your Audience

performance? Know Your Audience

1. robustness 2. simplicity 3. performance Game Technology Priorities Technology is a means, not an end.

Robustness edge cases? failure modes? parameters simply connected? downsides? negative results? Interactivity prioritizes robustness!

Robustness

Simplicity me game you We are always about to fail!

Simplicity...even crudeness, if two sticks and a rock will do it, great! few parameters intuitive output pipeline integration explainable to artists dependencies code preprocessing markup order compatibility art directable

Performance the constant matters ms, not fps! real comparisons algorithms implementations inputs scenes working sets not just embarrassingly parallel worst case vs. average case?

Real Data

Source Code: Yes! source code is more rigorous the cost to verify a paper actually works is prohibitively high small fraction of papers are relevant; small fraction of those work as advertised

What to research? Avoid solutions looking for problems. Talk to game developers. Graphics – must integrate well. AI – is game design. Animation – interactivity is king. Perceptual Models and Metrics – what is important?

Miscellaneous Stuff Patents – dont! Patents – if you must be a douche, disclose your douchiness in the abstract. Put your paper online, not behind paywalls. Publish negative results. Answer s. Play games.

Thank you. chrishecker.com